Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
Most readers want publishers to label AI-generated articles — but trust outlets less when they do
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
July 31, 2014, 12:56 p.m.
Business Models
LINK: journojazz.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Justin Ellis   |   July 31, 2014

The team behind Homicide Watch D.C. is looking for a new home for the crime reporting website. Specifically, Laura and Chris Amico want to find a permanent partner to take over operations for the D.C. site, similar to the Homicide Watch sites in Chicago and Trenton.

In 2012, the couple relocated to Cambridge when Laura became a Nieman-Berkman fellow here at the Nieman Foundation. In 2013, the Amicos partnered with Boston NPR station WBUR to use the structured reporting methods of Homicide Watch in Learning Lab, an education project.

This week, Laura announced that she’s joining The Boston Globe as a news editor for data projects and multimedia. For now, Chris will assume the day-to-day operations of the site. In a blog post, Laura says the overall goal is to find another organization to take over those responsibilities:

The reality is this: Chris and I know that we are no longer the right people to shepherd HWDC. It is a local news site and the DC community deserves for it to be run by people who live there. In short, it needs a DC home in order to continue to exist and thrive.

We are hopeful that this will happen by the end of the year (we have conversations underway with two possible partners) and we look forward to helping that transition and following the continued good work of Homicide Watch in DC.

The Amicos would keep the right to license the software that powers Homicide Watch to other media companies. However, Laura told Poynter that if no D.C. partner is found they would consider shuttering the site. “It’s the worst-case scenario because we know it’s something that’s very important to the D.C. community,” she told Poynter.

Homicide Watch D.C. has faced an uncertain future before. Prior to Laura’s Nieman-Berkman Fellowship, the Amicos considered putting the site on “hiatus” for the duration of their time in Cambridge. A successful Kickstarter campaign raised over $40,000 to fund interns to do the legwork and reporting for the site.

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
Most readers want publishers to label AI-generated articles — but trust outlets less when they do
“We already expect quite a lot from the public in terms of media literacy to be able to navigate the contemporary information environment; the use of these technologies in news adds a whole other layer to that.”
Google’s $100 million to Canada’s news industry is a small price to pay to avoid regulation
“Bill C-18 is a test case of the power of platforms like Google and Meta to run and control Canada’s communications infrastructures. While the agreement allows all sides to claim victory, it is clear that Google successfully extracted key concessions over how it is regulated in Canada.”
Here’s how 13 news outlets are using LinkedIn newsletters
“While you’re less at the whim of the algorithm, it’s still social media.”